2010 you and me? We're alright

Like with many things, come the end of the year it is a time of reflection of the past 12 months… in the form of an award ceremony or countdown or something. Often this is slightly random and always means nothing in the grand universal scheme – this blog version will be no different. So in this, the final week of 2010, Greville Tombs’ blog will now announce its 4 moments of 2010!

The Weirdest moment of 2010

You know what was weird this year? That Raoul “Moaty” Moat incident. That was weird.

I know other weird things happened this year and, heck, there were even other weird serial killers this year.

There was, notably, the bloke who admitted to killing 3 prostitutes. I listened to a criminologist on the radio discuss the inner mind of that guy – what the signs are that he is not really a normal, everyday person like us. I can’t help but think he missed the point here and there. “First of all the killer, when asked to identify himself to the court, gave his name not as Stephen but as the Crossbow Cannibal” [Ok – the rule is never give yourself a nickname but if you absolutely have to, then never a bit of a comic book villain name. But to be fair, his MO in the murders was a crossbow and he did suggest he had then eaten a bit of the victims after] “Then we learn that he kept an iguana and would take it for walks” [again, this is odd but not as odd as that time he chased down a prostitute, shot her in the head with a bolt arrow – from his crossbow – and then dragged her dead body back along a lane and into his flat] “Finally, we know that he had an extensive collection of criminology and populist history books on famous murders” [Yes and he also had that Crossbow, didn’t he, that he used to shoot women in the head with].

But for me, the Moat thing had it all. It had a nutter with a gun and misplaced paranoid vendetta issues who thought himself able to stage a form of Rambo: First Blood affair against the local constabulary of a gentle riverside northern English village (and for a short while succeeded). It had a national news system in place that could not only cope with, but at times wilfully fuel, the public interest in the events. And, crucially winning it this award, it had a washed up alcoholic ex-footballer trying to attempt to talk a known armed murderer out of his woodland hide with a fishing rod.

Gazza’s negotiation plan was like all the best plans – simple: shout to “Moaty” that he “had a couple of cans of beer, a dressing gown and a fishing rod for him in the car” at the Police Do Not Cross cordon. I especially like the inclusion of the dressing gown – because if nothing else, Moaty appeared the type of guy who would be appreciative of a warm dressing gown.

I would have sent Paul Gascoigne straight in. Surely the sight of Gazza wandering aimlessly cutting a Rasputinish figure with a fishing rod in a wood in the drizzling dead of night shouting: “Moaty! Moaty! It’s Gazza!”, would have got Raoul thinking that this has taken an unexpected turn even for someone who was now holed up in an excess water pipe with a gun.

The fact that the late Raoul Moat was listed (albeit lowly) in a poll conducted of the Newcastle Utd FC fans when asked who they would have preferred as team manager to the current team manager, only served to highlight this triumvirate of madness.

The sports personality of 2010

There is little to no debate here from the shortlist.

The World Cup went off like a firework – that annoying squealing firework and it was held to your ear. For 31 days. I used to play football with a similar ball they used in this tournament back in primary school. Back then it didn’t have a pretentious name – we called it far more accurately a “fly-away” ball. The most interesting personality was ITV pundit and former Jamaican international Robbie Earl giving those complimentary tickets of his to 30 orange mini-dress wearing blonde Dutch girls. The controversy being that these girls were the main thrust of an illicit ambush advertising campaign for a beer company. Robbie had just met them on the street and supposed that all 30 of them were into him in a big way. You can see how he could think that. The advertising executives believed that the girls would get free airtime from male television directors and press photographers and media bloggers simply because of their aforementioned blonde mini-dress wearing appearance. What did they take us for? For some men the times have moved on, daddy-o. This is 2010. I was almost offended.

The Wimbledon Championship in 2010 was entirely predicable too. There was the match in the early rounds that went on for 3 days [non-stop, I believe]. But the American always looked the likely winner.

The Commonwealth games, again, was only truly interesting outside the sporting events. Before it began, speculation grew that teams would refuse to attend on Health and Safety grounds. And, in hindsight, it might have been better if Bowls Scotland had decided not to bother. Not one bowling medal for Scotland? For shame Scottish bowls high performance elite. In the culture of balanced journalism, I think the name has to take some responsibility though: you look at a 73 year old man called Winky and try not to think “High performance Commonwealth Athlete… really? You can’t honestly be a team mate. Are you sure you are not one of the Pommel Horse jumper’s granddads and have gotten lost – y’know because you are senile with age? Heaven help us.”

We also had the Winter Olympics this year, where a competitor died and featured no snow. Grim.

So it leaves only one sporting personality in the running, so to speak.

Greville Tombs taking to the hockey pitch to join in the age old sport of hocker. Or “Hockey” as it is known in today’s parlance.

I had never played hockey before. I didn’t know if I was physically capable of playing for an entire game. I needed to train. Queue 80’s training montage: “It’s the – eye of the tiger… da, dad, da, dad, da”… running up the office building stairwell with my gum shield in / “got to get into the eye! Of the Tiger…” / rolling a hockey ball over the keyboard of my PC… “Dah! Dah, dah, daaahh...” / at the top of some ladders in a library with a hockey stick then hitting the books with the stick… “The eye of the Tiger…”/ punching frozen meat in a hockey skirt [the frozen meat in the skirt, obviously, not me. That would be mental]. Music fades as I throw a hockey ball high into the dusk sky and leap with arms raised to freeze frame…

Even after a montage of up to 4 minutes, it turns out that I was barely capable of lasting the pace. Men 20 years my elder thundered by me, small Irish women almost ran my legs off. In light of this, quickly, I found my position – the Franco Baresi defensive General role.

My Office Hockey Team season stats then are thus:
Played: 2, 1 win (4-1) / 1 loss (0-4)
Number of times passed to: 2
Number of successful tackles made: 2
Number of passes completed: 3
Number of touches of the ball: 5
Blood Injuries: 2
Caught the Golden Snitch: none times.
You can’t argue with numbers like those – even if you want to.



TV moment of 2010

There were some great TV moments. The syndicated run of T.J. Hooker was great TV – and only doesn’t get the award through disqualification on a technicality. Further, BBC4 had an excellent 3 part series about the development and history of horror films fronted by Mark Gatiss followed by a rewarding review of the life of E. A. Poe through his relationship with women. Also there were some disappointments – anything that was not an American cartoon on BBC3, that Saturday night thing with the omnipotent John Barrowman, the Million Pound Drop and ITV no longer showing Quincy M.E. episodes. And there was Daybreak.

Daybreak is a curio. Not GMTV but with a lot of the old GMTV line-up in bit part roles, being told to be excitable and find everything youthful and cool. It is GMTV with a slow gin listening to its daughter's music collection and claiming it to be better than Showaddywaddy even though it is plain it prefers Showaddywaddy and would like nothing more than to dance to it with Dr. Hilary Jones than be in its daughter's bedroom listening to this noise.

And there was Glee. F**kin' Glee.

Nothing betters The Scheme on BBC1 though. Well perhaps BBC Breakfast when Susanna Reid is on it. [Sigh]
The Scheme was a distraught, non-compromised, darkly hilarious viewing experience. So much so, that only 2 of 4 episodes have yet been aired for legal reasons. It simply forced the viewer to make judgements on what was being shown.

For each participant being filmed for the fly on the wall documentary, sadness, selfish entitlement, defiant anger and sense of resignation overwhelmed the screen. Drink, drugs and skirmishing moments of sex wedged between violence, arguments and blame on a backdrop of depravation and garden trampolines. It wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out Jeremy Kyle owns schemes and estates just like this and uses them as nature reserves for guests. Jeremy taking to his Safari styled JEEP and firing off tranquilizer darts into back gardens, twirling a cast net above his head, eyes wide with the scent of the hunt.

It would be fascinating to place the folk on This Is Essex, the polar opposite, but on the same spectrum, into the scheme and see how they got on. Not well, I would wager.

Most significant moment of 2010

No pre-amble. The Greville Tombs blog going live is the clear winner here.

And this is not just because I am biased. It is also because of my partial apotheosis complex. Ok, there was the Pope making his visit to the UK, in an attempt to deflect from what happened to the unicorns. There was the formation of the Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition government. There was the ash cloud over the Atlantic. There was the Chilean Miners rescue. There was the woman who put that cat in the bin to the horror of the nation [when asked why she did it she waffled on about it being a joke gone wrong, something she couldn't explain - I wished she would just say "look, the thing is I thought it would be funny, there was an easy opportunity, and it turned out I did find it quite funny. I would do it again too"] There were births. There were deaths. There were all sorts of things which happened in 2010 that will be potentially the most significant thing in 2010 to many people. It would be churlish of me to say otherwise.

However, this blogging thing, for me was significant as a new experience and I am glad I have entered into it. It has been interesting. Deciding what to write, trying to draw a line in the sand as to what should and should not be expressed in it was the tricky part. How to be entertaining reading, even for a moment, under those conditions, is a hard thing. Having followers (not the best with the aforementioned complex) and hearing of those who have made efforts to read the ramblings that have passed the self-edit filters was the bit I enjoyed most. So many thanks for that.

You may notice one or two decorative changes to the Blog and also a leading market research question to answer too. But more of that in 2011! Have a great end to your two oh one oh.

MR SNOW brings the snow now

Britain currently looks like this, from the moon:

And while Britain has been enduring sub-zero temperatures and heavy snow fall throughout December, this week I happened upon MR SNOW.

It meets all the criteria for being responsible: Giant mechanised snow making robot. Yep, it all fits.

Now, before you do the obvious thing and strap tennis rackets to your feet to begin the arduous pilgrimage to face your new god and once there start worshipping at its plinth before hoping to appease it with offerings, such as Aled Jones, let me stop you. This will be a futile task [OK burning Aled Jones in a giant Wicker (snow) man is all well and good – yes, it will raise the temperature in the close vicinity for a bit, I’ll give you that. Maybe even melt a bit of the snow. And it’ll also be a timely boost to ratings on that particular episode of Songs of Praise. But once it is over you will have to go back to your family – and what will you tell them? That you had a nice evening spent with like minded people, shared a few stories, set fire to Aled Jones to calm MR SNOW your new and therefore your family’s new god? Good luck with that] – futile because MR SNOW is not a deity.

We are obviously dealing with a highly sophisticated machine here.

Apart from the issue that it is a terrible name for a robot, it is clear just by looking at it that it has been created by science and (just as everything given life by man) it has gone haywire. It is almost certainly using the most advanced technology of the age. It stands as a truly awesome piece of technical engineering and design. It has cogs on its chest and everything.

I am no robotics engineer but I would say that it definitely gets its power from harnessing the kinetic energy from sledging children.

Do not panic citizens! There are 2 sure fire ways to defeat a robot. Even one as advanced as this. Either give it an ambiguous set of rules in its programming which it cannot compute and, while it is distracted silently killing your innocent comrades, find the off switch… or get more scientists to build a marginally bigger, incrementally faster, minutely more intelligent robot. I know which way my money is to be on – Bring the slight increase in warmth MR MILD!

If blog has gone down hill lately, break glass to release Lobos

My office has set-up an intranet. Long gone are the days of the old civil service intranet: A blocky 4 colour Windows 3.11 tone affair of ignorable staff organigraph, daily weather report that seemed fixated on temperature rather than if it would be sunny or rainy and 3 items of news (Management pre-approved ones which were not going to rile the blood of staff) scrolling across the bottom of the screen. [Incidentally, I remember the only time a 4th news story was added scrolling, shakily like ticker-tape, during the day was the news that Spike Milligan had died]

Now it is possible to create secure online Working Party and Department Groups, manipulate Shared Documents, host Interdepartmental Virtual Meetings, collectively add into Knowledge Databases, receive Management Notifications, complete interactive forms and disseminate any number of news stories you wish with RSS alerts.

All this efficiency for an open plan office with 8 people in it, who used to do many of those things with the crunching inefficient method of a chat and maybe follow up e-mail, way back in the old times. Of 2005.

[I have had a few of those olden days cryogenically frozen – to be thawed out at the very moment World of Warcraft: Contingency Plan 10am Meeting expansion pack is released]

“If something is written in stone – it will fall out of the data cloud. And perhaps squash a person with an idea.”

It is the end of the office paper document. These days it is all about the ongoing collaboration on lucid virtual documents and the fluid creation of organic policies around a virtual desk whilst using the internet to flight imbedded added value information into notes at a click of a mouse button.

But you know what it all makes me wonder? More so than: Why we have preposterously implemented the equivalent of the infrastructure of the UN to run the equivalent of a small cottage industry in Heathergems when we are pretty archaic in other ways? It makes me wonder what would happen if blog fan boy favorite Lobos the Robot was given the intranet?

Obviously that’s what I was wondering, what on earth else do you think I wonder about?

After all, Lobos would seem to be at an ideal evolutionary stage to use all this technology. Directly after man and office appliance merge like the worst Robocop film ever. Like Robocop 12 or something. The tagline: Half man, Half Cannon IRC 5035i – all Cop(ier) and looks like this:



Ha, ha! Look at it, trying to emote whimsy.

“Hey, I’ve just noticed that there is an Ethernet port at the back of Lobos. We could plug Lobos into the new office intranet!”
“You know, you should have created a working party on the intranet which would have alerted me via RSS feed to your proposal document that I could then add comments to, instead of simply shouting a statement across the room. But since you’ve got my attention, in this shameful lo-tech way, how would that make us more efficient beyond our current cloud online environment?”
“With its rudimentary 1993 vocalization software it would be able to read out vital management edicts out of its speaker!”
“But the intranet is designed in order that we are no longer distracted with verbal sounds.”
“And it’ll sound cool, like Stephen Hawking is talking to us!”
“Excellent. Do it.”
“OK, just putting the cable in the back now… oh… oh dear!”
“What is it?”
“Lobos has accessed our mainframe!”
“Do we even have a mainframe? It’s only 5 computers cobbled together by some grey cabling.”
“Now the printers are offline!”
“Right… best call IT.”
“We can’t, Lobos has cut the Telephone lines!”
“That beige boxed swine… it seems one step ahead of us at every turn. Almost as if it… perceives… our every next move.”
“Lobos has just declared a hostile takeover bid of our main competitor. We appear to have infiltrated the Kremlin, bypassed their firewall and have redirected the entire Russian nuclear armament’s global positioning onto their office building! We are at DEFCON 2!”
/TELL/ LOBOS:/ WHAT/ IS/ ROMANTIC/LOVE?/
“Jesus, it is exactly like Stephen Hawking is in the room.”

Ah Lobos, what will your biting office satire leave in its bloodied wake next?

God Shuffled His Feet

I have been offered the chance to put forward an offer to edit the provincial newsletter for my sector of work.

It is the successful, concurrent (although smaller distributed) sister publication to that of the main sector Newsletter [note capital N] which, of course, hosts the irregular written column by that dandy and rogue, none other than Car. d’Gan.

I sort of fancy doing it, you know. And, so, I thought about the application I would submit:

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the panel, the concept of editing the newsletter is both immediately alluring and daunting to me.

Alluring because of the power I would yield. Alluring too because – and I presume that this will not have escaped the panel – I would almost certainly consider it one up in my on-a-knife-edge game of brinkmanship with Car. d’Gan. [Yes – you see that Car. d’Gan? Do you see it? That’s my yacht, anchored off the coast of the Canary Islands, with dancing women on board, all dancing about me, hooked by my editorial talent, no one caring about the newsletter pension scheme except you? Yeah – you see it.]

It is daunting because I have not edited anything before. I have no point of reference. Really there is no rational reason for me or you, dear panel, to think I would have any talent for it. But, in stating that, I do recall a story of an earned Community Responsibility badge in the Sea Scouts…….

Once there was this kid who, in helping run the after school club for primary school children for that month to gain his Community Responsibility badge, had a role mainly in supervising games and setting up activities. And then tidying the bean bags, skittles, pencils and paper away into the large trunk chest at the end of the early evening. He had additionally been tasked with providing the mid-activity refreshments.

This kid was to measure out 30 plastic beakers worth of weak, mildest strength diluting Orange juice.

Well, he thought about this. He wanted the children to remember the month when ‘once there was this kid' who was amongst them. He wanted to blow the cobwebs of old fashion from their young, cowed workhouse shoulders with contemporary fluorescent Lycra ideas. Hell, he was basically Robin Williams in that documentary where Robin went to a school and read poetry out to boys but in return made them call him captain and live in a tree. This kid admittedly wasn’t paying it much attention when it was on the TV but felt he got the gist. He didn’t even watch it to the end, just taking it that Robin Williams simply explained things to Orsen and then said Na-nu-na-nu. Yes, definitely maverick level set to Robin Williams more than Christian Slater.

So on the first summer’s night this kid left to quickly go round to the local Safeway and came back with his version of American poetry read by an alien and not a bomb with a timing device strapped to him (though if it had meant pulling Winona Ryder, he would set a ticker in a bar of plastic explosive in a heartbeat, badge or no at stake, she wouldn't even need to ask [Free the Winona one!]). He made up 30 plastic beakers worth of weak, mildest strength diluting Summer Fruits juice.

When they saw the beakers laid out, the other leaders and helpers asked why he had done such a thing? Didn’t he know that a change of juice required a signed letter from parents? Didn’t he think about the consequences of a vibrant, different flavour?

I mean, sure, he was a good looking, mysterious, self-styled outsider. Enigmatic with an intelligent, smouldering lone wolf charm even. I would say, like an international playboy spy who followed his own rules with eyes than could melt iron and dice which rolled for high stakes. But this kid was, in the flush of youth, unrepentant. That night he was also wrong.

Some children refused to drink it. Others became irrational and started to panic, requiring restraining. One or two children drank it and enjoyed the change of pace. The majority of them though played up, pretending it was fine red wine. Falling crookedly into walls, sloshing the juice out of the beakers and onto the floor and mats in acted out inebriation and berating their pretend husbands and wives: “I saw how you were looking at them! Not that I am… let me finish! Not that I am surprised; the soul, for what it ever was, went out of this relationship years ago. We only stay together because of the pretend dog! This wine, this wine is delicious.”

Ugly, Summer Fruit diluting juice fuelled scenes.

And if this meandering story – or (you may suggest it, it is really not for me to say, but I can’t stop you claiming it to be) near-holy parable – says anything about editing a newsletter of limited distribution it is this: If I am your editor then hear my promise now: I will not change the cordial, just improve the strength. And probably will change the cordial.

Case dismissed.”

With a bit of luck, the panel will then make the correct decision.

Why a robust preservation policy might just save your life one day

At work I received one of those local sector community mailing list e-mails. This is what is said:

We have some music manuscripts which we have to pass on to another organisation. They have been in storage in a box in an unheated and possibly damp location for two years. When we opened the box there were tiny white mites moving in the box. These mites have not been identified as a particular species. We do not want to pass on the manuscripts as they are. I have read The Preservation Advisory Centre Guidelines, but they don’t do quick fixes. The Company partner is looking for a quick fix of a spray we can apply.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

This is around all 7 shades of wrong and, so, almost e-mail Genius! The implication that they basically are looking for someone to recommend a “spray” might be the most worrying part. This is the all too real consequence of Cillit Bang adverts.

I had to stop myself from typing immediately back an e-mail response:

You’ll be fine with a normal, everyday flammable lacquer spray from any good stationer. Spray liberally on mites and paper contents. Then burn the box, burn it to hell.

The actual answer is that there is no quick fix. The Preservation Guidelines are quite correct. Matters of paper conservation and pest control take a slow, expert hand combined with a rigorous preservation policy and environmental monitoring system to cure. It seems that this understanding is a little lacking here.

This situation will not turn out well. I am expecting the next communication to be received from the company via a collective e-mail will be from the King of the Mites making his demands and threatening to start “blasting hostages”.

I, of course, could e-respond in an attempt to maintain a dialogue with His Mitejesty, all the while trying to identify what mites we are dealing with: So far we only know they are tiny, white and their society is governed by a monarch as sovereign head of state.

But such negotiations would be tricky:

“Ok, the non-sequential sheets of damp paper are being readied to be deposited in an unmarked bag at the drop zone designated. Perhaps, King Mite, you would release a hostage in good faith?”
“I am King Mite II.”
"What happened to King Mite the 1st?"
“My father is dead. We mites are a fast breeding, short lived race. And I have new demands. My father was a fool.”
“Oh. Ok, what are your demands, King Mite II?”
“I am King Mite III and we want a Chopper on the roof in 20 minutes.”